The ISIS Speech: Obama and the Dogs of War

Can he control them once they are unleashed?

Here is President Barack Obama's challenge: how to unleash the dogs of war without having them run wild.
This dilemma applies to both the political and policy considerations
Obama faces, as he expands US military action in Iraq (and possibly
Syria) to counter ISIS, the militant and murderous outfit that now calls
itself the Islamic State and controls territory in northern Iraq and
eastern Syria. In a speech from the White House on Wednesday night,
Obama announced what was expected: The United States would widen its air
strikes against ISIS in Iraq, "take action" of some sort against ISIS
in Syria, ramp up military assistance for the Syrian opposition, keep
sending advisers to assist the Iraqi military's on-the-ground-campaign
against ISIS, and maintain pressure on Iraqi politicians to produce a
national government that can represent and work with Sunnis and,
consequently, undercut ISIS's support and appeal in Sunni-dominated
areas of the country—all while assembling a coalition of Western nations
and regional allies. (He gave no details about the membership of this
under-construction alliance.) The goal: to "degrade and ultimately
destroy" ISIS. There were no surprises in the speech, and this strategy
of expanded-but-limited military intervention—Obama referred to it as a
"counterterrorism campaign" different from the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan—has a fair amount of support from the politerati and the
policy wonks within Washington and beyond, as well as from the public,
per recent polling. But whatever he calls it, the president is
attempting a difficult feat: waging a nuanced war.

First,
the politics. Despite years of public war-weariness following the Iraq
War—a war that was sold on false pretenses and that yielded the current
mess—Americans these days are telling pollsters that they support US military action against ISIS. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal
survey found that 94 percent had heard about ISIS beheading two
American journalists. That's a whopping figure; far above any other
event measured in NBC News/Wall Street Journal polls in the
past five years. (The 2011 debt ceiling crisis rated only 77 percent.)
And in this particular poll, 47 percent of the respondents noted that
they fear that the United States is less safe now than prior to the 9/11
attacks. (A year after the attacks, only one-fifth said this.) Put it
all together, and a good assumption is that many Americans are wigged
out by ISIS and the chaos in Iraq. This may be, as some war skeptics
have noted,
due to extensive media coverage of ISIS and its bloody deeds. Yet
whether the public fear is justified—in recent days, some foreign policy
experts have noted that ISIS does not pose a direct and immediate
threat to the United States—Obama, at this point, has plenty of
political leeway for beefed-up military operations aimed at ISIS.
Though some progressive Democrats
and libertarian-minded Republicans have already decried Obama's
stepped-up campaign in Iraq, he has not faced the sort of political
opposition he encountered last year when he was considering bombing the
regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria in retaliation for its use of
chemical weapons (before Syria agreed to hand over its chemical
weapons). There might be a tussle over whether Obama needs congressional
authorization for the expanded military action against ISIS. In his
speech, he said he already has the authority to proceed; some
legislators say he does not, some say he does, and many lawmakers simply
don't want to be put on the hook with a vote. But there's not yet a
sign this will turn into a true political brawl. Still, Obama has to be
careful. As he encourages and preserves support for this war, he cannot
overstate the the threat ISIS poses—or allow others to hype that
threat—for that could place him in a difficult position: advocating a
limited strategy to deal with a situation the public views as a grave
danger.
Obama has to present the ISIS problem in accurate terms. It's now a
threat to the region and US interests there, not an existential threat
to the so-called homeland. Yet neocons and other hawks—John McCain, Dick
Cheney, etc.—have gone full war, declaring that ISIS presents a
profound danger to the United States and that Washington must go all-out
(unilaterally, if necessary) to destroy this enemy. They've been
calling for greater US involvement in the Syrian civil war. If Obama
doesn't manage the debate about the dangers ISIS poses, he will empower
the hawks and weaken his political standing. And in the post-9/11 world,
it's tough to talk about threats and proportionate responses, without
providing ammo for those who want to turn up the volume to 11.
In the speech, Obama did associate ISIS with the "terrorist threat"
that yielded 9/11. But he stated that the current danger ISIS presents
is directed at "the people of Iraq and Syria and the broader Middle
East." He added, "If left unchecked, these terrorists could pose a
growing threat beyond that region—including to the United States. While
we have not yet detected specific plotting against our homeland, ISIL
leaders have threatened America and our allies." He also raised the
specter of Europeans and Americans joining ISIS forces and returning to
their home countries to carry out "deadly attack"—a scenario some
terrorism experts believe has been exaggerated.
So Obama walked a fine line: He gave the impression that thwarting ISIS
is important for preventing another 9/11, yet he noted that was no
reason to fear an ISIS attack against the United States at this time.
With this approach, the president is not curtailing excessive
interpretations of the ISIS threat.
In 2003, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney sold a war on a simple
premise: Saddam Hussein was a threat to the survival of the United
States, and the only option was a full-scale invasion. Obama is
presenting the public a military action that is not based on a
black-and-white view (ISIS is evil, we will destroy it any way we can)
but one predicated on grays. If US air strikes can make a difference, if other nations join in, if the Iraqi government gets it acts together, if the
Iraqi military can do its job, then the United States will use its
military might in a limited way to vanquish ISIS. A conditional case for
war does not easily sync up with the stark nature of such an
enterprise. If any of these ifs don't come to be, will Obama be cornered
and forced by his rhetoric to do something? After depicting
ISIS as a peril warranting a US military response—and with much of the
American public convinced of that—can he then shrug his shoulders and
say, "Never mind"? Will he provide the hawks an opening for political
attacks and demands for greater military intervention? In his speech,
the man who ran for president with the pledge to end the Iraq War
declared, "We will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq." But
what if all else fails? He vowed to eradicate the ISIS "cancer," noting
it will take time to do so. Can he stop if his nonwar counterterrorism
campaign does not defeat the disease? It is hard to put the case for war
back in the box.
The policy side of Obama's ISIS dilemma is similar. Once ISIS is
deemed a threat that must be countered with US military force, the
commander-in-chief could find it difficult to adhere to self-imposed
restraints. If air strikes pounding suspected ISIS targets in Iraq don't
do the trick, is Obama obligated to bomb in Syria? If bombing in Syria
doesn't turn the tide, does the United States have to become more
involved in the civil war there? If US trainers don't sufficiently help
Iraqi troops battling ISIS, does the president resist calls for
introducing US special forces into the fight? If an Iraqi unity
government cannot function, does the United States and other coalition
members wage the fight against ISIS on their own? If the current crisis
yields a wider Sunni-Shiite conflict, what the hell does the United
States do?
Obama's intentions are clear: He doesn't want to return to full-scale
US military involvement in Iraq. But now that he has committed the
United States to renewed military action there, where's the line? When
US military intervention in Libya was debated in the White House, Obama,
after careful deliberation, chose a calibrated course of action that
included limited US military involvement as part of a multilateral
campaign. That plan achieved its end: Libyan dictator Moammar Qaddafi
was ousted. (The dust there, however, is far from settling.) Obama's
approach to ISIS is similar, but this problem is more vexing and the
risks greater. His speech gave little indication of how he might
confront the possible problems and hard choices that will likely come.
There's an old cliché: No battle plan survives contact with the
enemy. The same might be true for a case for war. Once a war is started,
the narrative of that war, like the events themselves, can be hard to
control.